This is another extremely well crafted masterpiece covering the relationships within a family experiencing a tragic death of the patriarch. It also has an interesting backdrop of modern American society with its dark side portrayed with honesty. ( )

Cela aurait pu être un formidable livre sur le veuvage : disséqué, analysé, mis en pièces, la situation de la l'épouse devenue brutalement veuve s'étale sur les deux tiers de ce livre fleuve qui compte tout de même plus de 900 pages ... mais à en faire trop, à en écrire encore et encore sur le désespoir, le vide laissé, la culpabilité ou la révolte de la femme laissée seule alors qu'elle n'avait vécu que pour son mari, on se lasse, on aimerait penser par nous-mêmes. Et après toute cette souffrance, qui avait fini par lasser son entourage, voir cette même femme accepter la présence d'un autre homme auprès d'elle ( un hispanique, en plus !!), partir en voyage, et comble de scandale, se marier avec lui cela devient un brin incompréhensible pour ne pas dire incohérent. L'auteure sait manier le langage, la langue acérée des Américains qui savent si bien parler des travers de leurs concitoyens. Pauvre Amérique, qui ne sort pas du racisme de tout bord qui la ronge depuis que les premiers colons ont mis le pied sur ce territoire pour en faire, parait-il, le plus grand pays du monde...Mais comme trop d'auteur(e)s contemporains, hélas, le roman est bavard, trop bavard. ( )

Family. Race. Turmoil. Evolution.

When prominent Hammond, NY, citizen, its former mayor in fact, comes upon what he views as an injustice in progress, a brown man being abused by two white police officers, he steps in. Angered by his interference, the officers turn on him, beating and tasering him relentlessly. After, they release the man they’d stopped for nothing more than suspicion of driving black, call 911, and leave John Earle McClaren by the side of the road. Thus begins Joyce Carol Oates’ saga of a family thrown into turmoil as they deal with the loss of their patriarch, as well as racism inherent in American life, for not even this man and his family are immune to it, regardless of John Earle’s selfless sacrifice.

Even in death, John Earle continues to exert a powerful influence over his family of six, wife Jessalyn, sons Thom and Virgil, and daughters Beverly, Lorene, and Sophia, as each comes to terms with his death. As they do, the essence of their characters, long held in abeyance by John Earle’s dominant presence, surface, spurring conflict among them and for their various careers as businessman, artist, homemaker, school administrator, and researcher, respectively. And then there are their various relationships with their mother as they watch her struggle with her overwhelming grief, but even more, their concern and near abhorrence of the emergence of something she’d lost in her marriage, her agency as an independent person. This concern as it regards the new man who enters her life exposes both the racism and class prejudice ingrained in each family member, and by extension American society in general.

Most readers familiar with Oates’ work and life know that the unexpected death of her first husband, author, publisher, and professor Raymond Smith, affected her deeply, plunging her into the depths of depression for six months, until she met Charles Gross, whom she married and who died in 2019. She wrote about her life with and emotional loss of Smith in A Widow's Story: A Memoir. So it will be no surprise that among the strongest parts of Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. are those involving Jessalyn. In some important ways, including the suddenness of John Earle’s death, the depths of Jessalyn’s grief and despair, and her meeting and marriage to another man different from her first husband relatively soon into widowhood, parallel Oates’ own life, adding even more authenticity to the character of Jessalyn.

JCO fans will greatly enjoy this new novel, especially the epic length, as she is never more effective than when she is eating up lots of landscape. Most readers will find the novel an absorbing, and if they allow it, a thought provoking excursion not only into family dynamics but into the most crucial societal issue in American history.
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Family. Race. Turmoil. Evolution.

When prominent Hammond, NY, citizen, its former mayor in fact, comes upon what he views as an injustice in progress, a brown man being abused by two white police officers, he steps in. Angered by his interference, the officers turn on him, beating and tasering him relentlessly. After, they release the man they’d stopped for nothing more than suspicion of driving black, call 911, and leave John Earle McClaren by the side of the road. Thus begins Joyce Carol Oates’ saga of a family thrown into turmoil as they deal with the loss of their patriarch, as well as racism inherent in American life, for not even this man and his family are immune to it, regardless of John Earle’s selfless sacrifice.

Even in death, John Earle continues to exert a powerful influence over his family of six, wife Jessalyn, sons Thom and Virgil, and daughters Beverly, Lorene, and Sophia, as each comes to terms with his death. As they do, the essence of their characters, long held in abeyance by John Earle’s dominant presence, surface, spurring conflict among them and for their various careers as businessman, artist, homemaker, school administrator, and researcher, respectively. And then there are their various relationships with their mother as they watch her struggle with her overwhelming grief, but even more, their concern and near abhorrence of the emergence of something she’d lost in her marriage, her agency as an independent person. This concern as it regards the new man who enters her life exposes both the racism and class prejudice ingrained in each family member, and by extension American society in general.

Most readers familiar with Oates’ work and life know that the unexpected death of her first husband, author, publisher, and professor Raymond Smith, affected her deeply, plunging her into the depths of depression for six months, until she met Charles Gross, whom she married and who died in 2019. She wrote about her life with and emotional loss of Smith in A Widow's Story: A Memoir. So it will be no surprise that among the strongest parts of Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. are those involving Jessalyn. In some important ways, including the suddenness of John Earle’s death, the depths of Jessalyn’s grief and despair, and her meeting and marriage to another man different from her first husband relatively soon into widowhood, parallel Oates’ own life, adding even more authenticity to the character of Jessalyn.

JCO fans will greatly enjoy this new novel, especially the epic length, as she is never more effective than when she is eating up lots of landscape. Most readers will find the novel an absorbing, and if they allow it, a thought provoking excursion not only into family dynamics but into the most crucial societal issue in American history.
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Many decades ago I read two books by Oates, Black Water and Because It Is Bitter, Because It’s My Heart. Then I forgot about her, even though I liked the two books I’d read. Now I’ve finished her 800-page 59th novel in 5 days and thought it was excellent—as writing, as story, as satire. It revolves around as act of police brutality and a family tragedy, and has a certain ripped-from-the-headlines flavor. Even more so it is about privilege and casual racism, family lies and myths and everyone’s struggle to get free.

I liked this review:

https://chireviewofbooks.com/2020/06/16/shadows-of-consciousness-in-night-sleep-... ( )